dark nights
by your-biohazardous-friend
Summary: even clones have to sleep sometimes.


**Disclaimer:** Star wars franchise belongs to many people and companies from Gorge Lucas to Disney, however I'm not among them.

* * *

 **Dark nights**

 _By your-biohazardous-friend_

 _Sleep, sleep, close your gray eyes_

 _Close your gray eyes and nuzzle closer to me_

 _Rock, rock cradle on your own_

 _(…)_

 _Rock, rock cradle from side to side_

 _Go to sleep my beloved boy_

 _Go to sleep and grow_

 _ **Hemp Lullaby**_ by **Warsaw village band**

 **Visions**

In Rex's dreams, Ahsoka was… ageless. She wasn't a girl he met on Christophsis nor the young adult running away from her trial. She was… a transcendental vision - the closest thing a clone could ever have to Force manifestation that he heard of so many times from Jedi knights.

 **Jigsaw puzzle**

Medic bay was full of jigsaw puzzle boxes. They were stacked in corners of every room. For very sick or dying soldiers those jigsaws puzzles were nothing more than postcards cut into four big squares. For the lightly wounded, those games were hundreds of pieces in total, featuring a dawn on Tatooine or other hard to solve reproductions. The game looked out of place among white walls and stainless steel equipment of recovery rooms, but they had a very important purpose: to wear out patients when drugging them into oblivion was out of question.

 **Sleep of the just**

Contrary to the rest of his brothers, Rex dreamt of feelings, not actions. His dreams were free of naked, needy females sprawled on his bunk or mountains of his dead brothers _._ More often than not, there were no images at all - just feeling of terror, fear, hopelessness.

Sometimes however, especially when the Jedi were around, he felt love, security and safety. Those were the best dreams he ever had.

 **Nightmares**

Even though they were all programmed to withstand any stress, dreams were something that Kamino engineers couldn't enhance or get rid off as they were part of being sentient and self-aware beings.

Most often than not, clones would sob in their restless sleep, calling their superiors as if they were their surrogate parents, or they choose to lay awake - terrified to close their eyes.

A lot of Jedi knew about the overwhelming distress and meditated solely to sooth clones' hardship. Yet the knights did not understand the roots that corrupted the soldiers' ghastly missions. In true Jedi fashion, the monk-warriors didn't dwell on those nightmares and kept them were they were born - in the dark side of the mind of their soldiers.

 **Medpack lullaby**

Kix nightmares reeked of Bacta and were full of injuries and his brothers' mutilated corpses: sacrificed by primitive tribes, impaled or cut in half by bloody-red lightabers. Other times their bodies were bloated, flowing lifelessly in space vacuum or popping like a grotesque balloons under AT-TEs' legs.

He dreamt of holding their hearts in his hands and performing the most gruesome and literal heart massage.

Kix's medkit was always empty.

 **Meditation**

At some point, every clone asked their Jedi commander how to keep the nightmares at bay. The warrior-monks never have shown any annoyance or impatience with them despite the fact that they knew exact outcome of the request.

Jedi masters always took those inquisitive clones aside and explained the idea behind the mediation, taught them how to sit and breathe but clones thoughts were on constant high alert so the crossed legs started to hurt after a while, time dragged as mind got bored of stillness. They preferred to drink muddy water rather than wait for dirt to settle at the bottom of the puddle.

 **Echoes**

Echo dreamt of… echoes… of square miles of thick fog or never-ending labyrinths of looking glass. He shouted and screamed, fired flares and patched up com-links, yet each night, he was all alone, with only his own echoing voice to keep him company.

 **Age**

Sometimes they slept in a pile. It sounded childish but frankly, they were all just ten year-olds or younger.

 **Sleeping habits**

Fives did everything in fives. He had to prop his pillow five times. Turn from one side to the other just as many times. The most important _five_ however, was to hold his breath long enough to feel five beats of his own heart to make sure he's still alive.

 **Lullaby**

They were primitive people. They rode animals known as _horses_ , which, according to Republic database, was long lost species. The people of this planet were so primitive they didn't even know the rest of the galaxy existed! They believed they were all alone in the universe! All alone! It must have been a terrible feeling.

The woman tending his wounds was pretty though, she had red hair and sweet voice. For her Force was witchcraft while difference between Jedi and Sith didn't exist. Both sides were warlocks, charlatans, wizards or mages.

Cody was injured, tired and sleepy, so his mind registered just bits and pieces of the song the redhead was singing. The lullaby was eerie…weirdly tranquilizing. It depicted Force users as greedy, bold monster hunters who killed everyone standing in their way. This night Cody dreamt of Obi-Wan Kenobi drenched in the blood of his enemies.


End file.
